How to Rebuild Architecture

IN architecture, everyone’s a critic. One of us, Steven, was recently driving down Elliott Avenue in Charlottesville, Va., his hometown, with his 88-year-old mother. They passed a house designed and built by architecture students at the University of Virginia. To Steven, an architect, this model for affordable housing — a tough pair of stacked boxes, sheathed in corrugated metal — was a bold design statement. But to his mother’s eye, the house was a blight on the landscape, an insult to its historic neighbors.

“It looks like somebody piled a couple of boxcars on top of each other, then covered them up with cheap metal and whatever else they could find at the junkyard!” she said.

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About ICAA

The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA) is the leading national nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the practice and appreciation of the classical tradition in architecture and the allied arts. Serving a broad constituency nationwide, the ICAA’s mission is first and foremost Education. Design practitioners, students, and enthusiasts can find Continuing Education, Professional Intensive Courses, a Certificate in Classical Design, Public Programming, publications via The Classical America Series in Art and Architecture, a peer-reviewed journal entitled The Classicist, and Travel Programs to fulfill professional practice and intellectual needs.